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 Anna’s Complaint.

ON Thanet’s rock, beneath whose steep

Impetuous rolls the foaming deep,

A lowly maid, to grief consign’d,

Thus pour’d the sorrows of her mind :

And while her streaming eyes pursue

Of Galia’s cliffs the misty view,

Accurst (she cries) that guilty shore,

Whence William shall return no more !

Thou, cruel war, what hast thou done !

Thro’ thee the mother mourns her son ;

The orphan joins the widow’s cries;

And, torn from love—the lover dies.

Ah, William ! wherefore didst thou go

To foreign lands to meet the foe ?

Why, won by war’s deceitful charms,

Didst thou forsake thy Anna’s arms ?

Alas! full little didst thou know,

The monster war doth falsely show :

See, to the rigging clings the crew!